


The Fairy Child

by versaphile



Category: Legion (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Amy Haller POV, Caretaking, Childhood, Childhood Schizophrenia, Crying, Doctors & Physicians, Dogs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode s02e06: Chapter 14, Family, Gen, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, Imaginary Friends, Medication, Mental Illness, Misdiagnosis, Mutants, Persecution (subtle), Pre-Canon, Protective Siblings, Protectiveness, Psychic Parasite, Schizophrenia, Seizures, Siblings, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Teleportation, Unreliable Narrator, personality changes, what did the stars say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 22:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14680338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/versaphile/pseuds/versaphile
Summary: Amy's mom says David is a gift from the fairies. They're going to be best friends and have adventures and she's going to take care of him.A prelude to the series overall and the realities in Episode s02e06 "Chapter 14."





	1. Chapter 1

Her mom says David is a gift from the fairies. 

Amy has always wanted a little brother. She's been asking for one and now she has him. And David is perfect, swaddled up tight and tucked into her old bassinet, his blue eyes unfocused and sleepy from being fed.

She knows that this isn't how little brothers usually arrive. They're supposed to be carried by flying storks, the same way that Santa brings her presents in his sleigh. But she remembers a man arriving late, burdened with overstuffed bags and a baby carrier. It doesn't make much sense, but perhaps the storks were too busy carrying babies to all the other houses to take care of this one themselves.

But none of that matters to her. The important thing is that she has a little brother now, her very own. She's been practicing with her dolls for ages and she's sure that's why the man brought David: he knew that she was ready for the responsibility of being a big sister.

They're going to be best friends. That's what little brothers are for. They're going to run everywhere together and she'll always be the oldest so he'll have to do whatever she says. She'll finally have someone to visit the creek with, someone who will help her catch frogs and pick flowers. They'll climb trees and play all sorts of games.

They'll keep secrets, too, like brothers and sisters do in all the books her parents read to her. Secrets just for them that they'll keep forever.

She reaches down and touches him. He's so soft and warm, like mom's bread dough after it's been rising all morning, before she bakes it and it gets all crusty.

No. _Their_ mom's. Their mom and dad. She smiles down at David and strokes his soft, thin hair. He burbles and shifts inside his swaddling, then looks directly at her.

"David?" she whispers, eager. "Hello. Do you know you're my little brother now?"

He blinks at her, then burps up a dribble of milky spit.

Amy laughs. "Don't do that," she chides, and wipes it away. "You need all your milk to grow big and strong."

David's tiny pink tongue pokes out between his lips. He looks around as if seeing the whole room for the first time, then stares at Amy again. Then he smiles.

Amy is delighted. "You're going to be the best little brother ever," she tells him. "We're going to be best friends and have adventures and I'm going to take care of you."

She leans down and kisses him on the forehead. He smells like her bubble bath.

"I promise," she swears, in solemn duty.

§

David is a terrible baby brother.

It's her birthday today and she invited all her friends over. She couldn't wait to show off her new brother, but all he did was cry and cry. He cried through the games, he cried through the cake, and he even cried through the presents. He cried so much that his little face turned all scrunched up and red, and nothing her parents did would make him stop.

David cries all the time. Babies are supposed to cry but he cries way more than that. 

Her party is over now. All her friends have left and they all think David is annoying. What if because of him they think she's annoying too? It's not fair!

"Stupid David," she grumbles. Then she realizes: he's finally stopped crying. Now, after all her friends went home! It's not fair!

She rushes up the stairs. A few months ago she helped her parents turn the spare room into David's room. She helped them clean everything out and helped them glue on the wallpaper. She let David have her favorite teddy bear because she wanted him to be happy, but he's not happy, he's not happy about anything.

She stops just outside the door because her parents are inside, standing next to his crib. Dad is hugging Mom, and she's crying.

David stopped crying, but now he's made Mom cry! He's the worst!

She'll give him something to cry about. It's time to teach him a lesson. She'll take back her teddy bear, that's what she'll do. She'll--

"Maybe we should--" her mom says, through her tears.

"We can't," says her dad. "You know we can't."

"What if something's wrong with him? The doctors can't find anything. What if--"

Her dad hushes her mom. "We made a promise. This is the best place for him. If anyone finds out... We can't risk it. They'll take him."

Amy steps silently back from the doorway. She runs into her room and closes the door, lies down on her bed, face against her pillow.

They’ll take him. That’s what her dad said. Someone wants to take David away, but who?

The fairies, she realizes. That’s who. David is a fairy baby and now the fairies want him back. That must be why he's upset, because he's afraid they'll find him and take him away from them.

David is crying because he's scared. 

“ _No_ ”, Amy whispers, gripping her pillow tight. Even if he cries all the time, she's not going to let anyone take him away from her. She's going to protect him. He's _her_ brother and she's going to make sure he's safe.

She waits, listening, until she hears her parents go downstairs. Then she wipes her eyes and looks around her room.

She has to give him something to make him safer. 

Her rocket lamp. When her dad gave it to her, he said that the rocket had astronauts in it, just like the ones in space. That they were always watching over her from high up in the stars. She's five now, all grown up; she doesn't need astronauts to watch over her, but David does.

She unplugs the lamp and carries it over to his room. He's fast asleep, the wrinkles in his face all smoothed out. He must be so tired from being scared all the time. She doesn't like being scared even for a second. It's awful.

She puts the lamp on the dresser next to the crib and plugs it in. The lampshade glows blue and casts stars across the wallpaper. There's rockets on the wallpaper, too; a whole fleet of spaceships and astronauts to watch over him and keep him safe.

"It's okay, David," she whispers. "You don't have to cry anymore."

She doesn’t mean to wake him but his eyes open anyway. He sees her, and for the first time all day, he smiles. 

“Gah!” he says, and reaches for her. 

She puts her finger to her lips and shushes him, but he’s so happy to see her that he won’t listen at all. 

“Oh fine,” Amy sighs, but really she’s been waiting for this all day long. She lowers the crib side and takes him out. She sits in the big chair beside the dresser and settles him on her lap. 

“You’re so much trouble,” she tells him, with gentle sternness. “Why can’t you be happy like this all the time?”

Every time other people come to the house, David cries. When they bring him on errands or to the doctor, he cries. He even cries with her parents. But when they’re alone, brother and sister, he smiles every time. 

It’s how she knows he was meant to be hers. 

The fairies can’t have him back, not for anything. She made a promise to protect him and that’s just what she’s going to do. Even if it means all her friends think she’s annoying because of him. Even if it means holding on to him all night, watching the stars move across the wallpaper. She’s never going to let anyone take him away.

§

"Mooooom," Amy whines, pleads. She reaches for David but he's too high up there in their mom's arms.

"No, honey," Mom tell her. "David has to stay with me. He's too young for school."

"You don't understand," Amy pouts. "He'll be sad all day without me."

David doesn't cry nearly as much as he used to now that he's getting so big. Now that he can walk and talk and play, he's such a perfect little brother. He loves following her everywhere, loves picking wildflowers and making her little bouquets, loves splashing in the stream and running in the long grass until Mom calls them home. 

He loves her and she loves him. That's why she can't leave him behind. If she does he'll be sad again.

Their mom just laughs with fond amusement. "You didn't have a big brother or sister when you were David's age, and you were just fine. Your dad and I can take care of him."

Amy pouts again. She knows that makes sense, but she can't help it. David needs her so much. It feels wrong to leave him behind, even for school.

She looks up at their mom with all the seriousness she can muster. "Promise?"

"I promise," Mom says. "Now give us a hug goodbye."

Mom kneels down so Amy can hug her, and then Amy hugs David as tight as she can.

"I'll be back soon, okay?" she tells him.

He looks back at her with those big blue eyes. "Okay," he echoes, but she already knows he isn't. She can feel his sadness in her own chest, somehow, and an almost magnetic pull that she has to force herself to fight as she walks away and through the classroom door.

On the other side of the door, she closes her eyes and listens as Mom carries David away. She counts the seconds: one, two, three...

When she hears him scream for her, his sobs echoing through the hallway, she runs into the bathroom, hot tears pouring from her eyes. She has to go back to him, has to go back, has to...

She slumps to the floor.

He's gone.

She stands up and washes her face at the sink, looks at her red-eyed reflection. It's okay for David to cry but she can't. She's the big sister, she has to be stronger. She has to be brave.

"Amy?" It's the teacher. She must have seen...

"I'm okay," Amy says, calling back through the door, even though she isn't okay. She sniffs.

Dad told her how important it is that she goes to school, that she learns as much as she can. She wants to study the stars like him one day, and she can't do that if she doesn't go to school.

_Andromeda, Antlia, Apus, Aquarius, Aquila, Ara, Aries, Auriga, Bootes..._

She lists off constellations in her head until she's calm. She has them all memorized. She's been teaching them to David but the words are still too big for him. Maybe one day they'll study the stars together.

_Caelum, Camelopardalis, Cancer, Canes Venatici, Canis Major, Canis Minor..._

§

David doesn’t like dogs. That’s why it’s so weird that he keeps pretending that they have one. 

David pretends a lot. He's always talking to himself or listening to people that aren't there. She's used to it, and sometimes it's even funny. He says the strangest things. She can't imagine where he gets his ideas from.

It's the fact that it's a dog that confuses her. David likes being around actual dogs about as much as he likes being around actual strangers. His typical response to both is to stare, wild-eyed and wary, until they give up and leave him alone. If they don't leave him alone then she gets between them, but it's the dogs more than the strangers that won't take no for an answer. 

There's something about David that dogs don't like. She's taken to carrying around a little bag of doggie treats so she can throw them the other way, grab David, and run.

David is feeding some of her doggie treats to the non-existent dog. Again. He doesn't seem to notice that the bits of kibble never actually get eaten. She's the one who picks them up and puts them back in the bag while he takes King for a walk around the yard.

She finds him standing where the yard becomes the forest, waiting patiently while King does his imaginary business. 

"What does he look like?" she asks him, finally.

"Who?"

"King. What does he look like?"

David laughs. "He's right there." He points at the trunk of a tree. "You're being silly."

That wasn't the answer she was hoping for. She tries again. "I just mean, what breed do you think he is? He's kind of a mutt, right?"

This makes David think. "Um."

"I found a book about dogs at the school library," she says, as casually as she can. "I thought we could look at it together."

"I guess," David says, but he's not enthusiastic. For all his unashamed pretending, he's oddly evasive about his imaginary dog. He doesn't seem to want to share King with anyone else.

She tried to talk to their parents about it, but they told her that it's just a phase, that there's nothing to worry about. That's what they said about the crying, about the imaginary conversations, about his fear of strangers, and about the nightmares that drive David to seek refuge in her bedroom. 

They say he's just sensitive and easily upset. That he's a little different right now, but he'll grow out of it when he's older.

Amy is too old to play pretend. She knows that something is wrong with David, even if she can't explain it or name it. What she doesn't understand is why no one else seems to care.

She finally gets him to sit down with her and they page through the book. The images of large dogs start making him restless, so she flips to the section on small dogs. She's certain that King is a small dog because David bends low to pet him and feed him. 

"That one," David says, suddenly perking up. He pets the empty air beside them on the sofa. "It looks just like you, boy!"

A beagle. King is a beagle.

"Like Snoopy," she realizes, suddenly relieved. David loves reading the comics with her every Sunday, and they both like Charlie Brown and his beagle. That must be where he got the idea from. 

"Oh yeah, Snoopy!" David says, smiling. "Can we go read the comics?"

"It's not Sunday yet, silly," she tells him. "But we'll read them first thing tomorrow."

David's grin goes even wider. It takes so little to make him so happy. Despite everything, he's always been so sweet.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt to play pretend a little longer. 

"King can read them, too," she adds. "As long as he doesn't pee on them."

David leans against her side and scratches at the air, probably behind King's ear. "We'll walk him outside first."

"We will," she agrees, and rests her arm around him.


	2. Chapter 2

When Amy comes home from school, after she helps David take King on his afternoon walk, she loves to play in Dad’s study. She loves the warmth of the room in the afternoon sun, loves the smell of his papers and books stacked and shelved and strewn in disarray depending on how intensely Dad has been working.

She loves the minerals he uses as paperweights: green polished malachite covered in puddle circles; a piece of a geode, the amethyst inside all flat, smooth planes of crystal; a slice of petrified wood so perfect that she can count the rings like the tree had just been cut down; and a small, heavy meteorite, pocked and molten from falling through the atmosphere.

But most of all, she’s fascinated by his tools: the telescopes and binoculars with their lenses and filters; the star charts he uses to map the sky; his compass and sextant. And simple things he always brings them him when he goes out at night: a red light flashlight so they can see in the dark without losing their night vision. Tripods and camera film. A radio for music and a radio for talking. A folding chair and table.

He taught her what everything was named and what it was for, how to use it. She needs to know how if she wants to be an astronomer herself one day. And she does.

The sky is so big, and it’s so full of stars. She can see thousands of them at night but there’s so many more than that. Her dad taught her that there’s no empty space in the sky at all, that what seems to be empty is filled up with stars too far away to see. Red giants, white dwarfs, neutron stars. And all of it is always moving all the time, impossibly fast in every direction. 

Sometimes she closes her eyes and she can feel the earth spinning on its axis, round and round and round like when she sits on her swing and David winds her up and then lets go. She pulls her feet in to go faster, the world a wild blur, David’s laughter pulsing towards her with each rotation like he's a neutron star and she's the earth, spinning and spinning. 

When Dad comes home, she's allowed to stay in the study with him as long as she lets him work. She usually reads or does her homework.

While Amy is at school, David spends all day with Mom, helping her in the kitchen or the garden, or just playing outside with King. But whatever he was doing, he always comes to Amy when she's home again and sticks himself to her side like glue. He sits beside her, coloring his books, calm and content. 

But sometimes things happen, even on perfect afternoons.

Amy has nearly nodded off in the middle of her homework, lulled by a sunbeam and by the flick of paper and the steady scratch of crayons. But something changes in the room that rouses her. It takes her a moment to realize what it is.

David isn't coloring anymore. He's writing.

His eyes are unfocused, like he's looking somewhere far away. She keeps still, not wanting to startle him, and looks down at the coloring book.

David is writing astronomical calculations. His hand is moving at the same time as Dad's, in the same way, though David's calculations are in a clumsy, purple scrawl. When Dad stops and looks at something, David stops writing. When he starts writing again, so does David.

"Dad," Amy whispers, urgent.

He stops, and David stops, too. 

"Hmm?" Dad says, absently. He turns, then looks where she's looking. There's a long pause, and then his pencil falls from his hand and onto the carpet.

David blinks like he's waking up. He looks around, confused that they're both staring at him. Then he puts down his purple crayon and picks up a yellow one, turns to the next page, and starts filling in a happy cartoon sun.

Amy and Dad look at each other. He covers his mouth, breathes in deep through his nose. David has done strange things in front of them before, many strange things, but this time surely Dad will say something. He'll do something, anything other than pretend that everything is normal.

But all he does is he pick up the pencil and turn back to his desk.

Amy can't stand it. She runs out of the office and up to her bedroom, slamming her door and flinging herself onto her bed. 

"Amy?" 

Amy sits up with a gasp. She hadn't heard David come in. She looks past him and the door is still closed. Had he...?

"What's wrong?" he asks, worried. "You ran away."

She stares at him, trying to understand what he is. What's wrong with him, with all of them. She's angry: at Dad, at herself, at David for being-- for being _David_. But he steps forward and her heart breaks for his big, sad blue eyes. 

"You're mad at me," he says, he _knows_. His voice is so small and hurt. It's the worst thing in the world.

"Come here," she says, holding out her arms. He scrambled up onto her bed and she holds him tight. "I'm not mad," she promises, she lies.

It's not his fault. Whatever's wrong with him, it's not his fault. How could it be?

§

There’s something wrong with David. 

It takes them a long time to realize, to recognize the symptoms are happening at all. David has always had odd moments where his attention drifts away to somewhere else, where right afterwards he forgets whatever strange mood came over him. 

They don’t realize he’s having seizures until the day he drops to the floor, his whole body convulsing, flopping like a desperate fish. 

All four of them rush to the hospital, and then it’s hours of sitting, waiting, worrying as doctors and nurses come and go, as David lies pale and weak on the hospital bed. 

A storm in the brain, that’s what the doctor calls it. It’s when all the neurons in David’s head start firing at once. A nurse asks them questions about any other times that David may have experienced seizures, and Amy can see the guilt and horror on their parents’ faces as they realize. 

Finally, she thinks. They’re finally going to help him. They can’t pretend he’s normal anymore. 

David is so quiet, lying in the bed, hooked up to monitors and an IV. He drifts in and out of sleep, and when he's awake he's confused and in pain. He hasn't said a word since the seizure, but she can see how terrified he is, how lost. She holds his hand almost the whole time, willing him to come back to her, for the spark to return to his eyes.

A nurse tries to move her out of the room so they can take a sample of the fluid in David's spine, but when Amy lets go, David starts whimpering like a wounded thing and won't settle until she's holding his hand again.

It takes almost an hour for them to get what they need from him. It's the longest hour of her life. She wishes he would go back to sleep, wishes they would make him sleep. Mom and Dad are there, too, trying to comfort both of them, but Amy is so angry with them. It's their fault, all of it, their fault for letting it get this bad.

What if David dies because of them? 

They need to keep him overnight, and when visiting hours end Amy has to go home. Thankfully by then David has finally succumbed to a deep sleep. She kisses his forehead and promises him she'll be back as soon as she can.

He has more seizures at the hospital, quiet ones that only register on their machines. He's put on medication. Days of testing and observation later, they finally bring him home.

Her heart breaks every time she looks at him. He's so quiet, even now that he's home, even with the medication. It's like something is draining the life out of him, some invisible vampire sucking him dry.

She has to go back to school, but she can't focus on her classes. She has to stay at a friend's house for a few days while her parents take David far away to some kind of specialist. 

The specialist can't help. No one can help. She finds David shaking on the floor and holds him until it's over. He bites his tongue and she wipes the blood away with a tissue.

§

Amy bolts awake in the middle of the night because David is _screaming_.

Her heart nearly leaps from her chest as she stumbles out of bed. He's still screaming when she reaches him, and she calls his name, tries to soothe him. His hoarse howls turn to wracking sobs, and she holds him because that's all she can do.

She hears muffled voices as her parents wake up, sees the light in the hall come on. Mom comes in, sits down on the bed and wraps her arms around both of them. Dad stands in the doorway, his hand over his mouth.

David's sobs slow, easing into gasping sniffs. "Amy?" he asks, weak and trembling.

Amy's heart squeezes as she realizes it's the first time he's called for her since the seizures started. She pulls back to look at him.

For the first time in weeks, in months, there's a spark in his teary, reddened eyes.

"You're back," she gasps, hugging him again. She doesn't know how or why, but in that moment she sees that he's been gone and now he's back, he's back.

Even though it's hours until dawn, when David says he's hungry they go down to the kitchen and have breakfast together. David chews through his waffles with focused determination, like he never thought he would taste them again.

"Where's King?" David asks, glancing around the kitchen. He hasn't talked about King in months, hasn't talked about anything. He's been barely functional, barely conscious sometimes. And now he's just... back.

Amy can see that their parents don't know what to make of it either. 

"I'm sure he's sleeping," Mom says, playing along as always. "You can go play with him later, okay sweetie?"

David nods and shoves more syrupy waffle into his mouth.

§

Amy is so relieved that her brother is better that it takes a while before she realizes that he isn't quite the same.

He's calmer, for a start. He was always so skittish, so easily upset. He's still delicate and sensitive, but it's like the difference between a fresh cut and one that has a band-aid over it. Somehow the seizures helped him, made the world a little easier for him to bear. 

Fewer weird things happen around him, much to their parents' relief. Their haunted house isn't quite so haunted anymore. David opens the door when he enters a room. Objects stay where they were left until someone picks them up. David doesn't know so many things that he shouldn't, doesn't spend so much time listening and talking to voices that aren't there.

King is back, and they're all still playing along. Somehow that's what feels the most normal out of all of it.

That fall, David is finally allowed to go to school, and though Amy is tense with worry the whole first day, it's fine. David is fine. He's shy around the other children, gets lost in his own little world, but there's no disasters, no tears. 

Amy's glad for him, she really is. She wants him to be healthy and happy, to be able to function in the world. He tries out for the soccer team and she cheers the loudest out of everyone at practice and games. He makes friends with a boy in his class named Mark and goes over to play at his house after school and she almost cries with relief that he's capable of something so simple and essential.

But it hurts, too. It hurts that he doesn't need her anymore, not the way he used to.

She finds herself retreating, then, pulling away from the world as David carefully embraces it. 

She remembers something from when she was very young. She used to think David was a fairy child. She looks up the term and reads about changelings, about stories where the fairies steal a human baby and replace it with their own. It feels like it's all happening in reverse, the fairy child being replaced by a normal boy.

She sees David every day, and her heart aches with how much she misses him.


	3. Chapter 3

Dad has been taking David out at night to watch the stars. 

Amy feels slighted that she hasn't been invited with them, but it's her own fault. She declared over dinner one evening that she didn't want to be an astronomer anymore, and now Dad is hoping David will follow in his footsteps instead.

She's old enough now to start seeing their parents as actual people, flaws and all. She's trying to accept them. But she still can't forgive them for their neglect, and she's absolutely livid at how much more they love David now that he's mostly normal, now that he fits into their lives instead of forcing them to fit into his.

Sometimes she lies awake at night waiting for the sound of Dad's footsteps in the hall. They used to stop at her door, but now they stop at David's. Soft words filtering through the wall, and then David sleepily following Dad's footsteps down the stairs. If she closes her eyes she can almost see it: David sitting in the passenger side of the old truck where she used to sit; David sitting next to Dad on the roof, the sheet metal flexing under their weight; the Milky Way overhead, the stars moving so slowly but so, so fast, and they're moving, too, even when they're sitting still.

She doesn't wait up because it'll be hours before they come home, but in the mornings after David is oddly peaceful at the breakfast table. There's something about those nights that soothes him, but she doesn't ask him what. The distance between them has never felt so impossible to cross.

Amy starts finding excuses not to come home after school, at least until late. Friends, clubs, the library. There's a boy she likes and she awkwardly approaches him. They kiss behind the school but he won't be her boyfriend. She decides he's awful and she hates him so it doesn't matter.

She's growing breasts and her period has started. Mom sits her down and gives her The Talk, and it's the most awkward thing ever. Everything feels awkward and her body is strange and unpredictable, and sometimes she just wants everyone to go away forever.

That's how she's feeling when David knocks on her bedroom door and peeks his curly head in, one grey and rainy afternoon.

"Amy?" he asks, in that hopeful, wary way of his.

"What do you want?" she says, gruffly. Little brothers are stupid. Everything is stupid.

He doesn't answer right away, which makes her slightly more curious than annoyed. She looks at those big blue eyes and like always they make her defenses crumble.

"Well?" she asks, with slightly less hostility.

David steps inside, stares at the door like he's not sure what to do with it, then leaves it just a crack open. A sliver of an escape route in case he needs to run away from her.

She feels like a monster. She's been monstrous to him, she knows it, it's just--

"Can..." he starts, stops. He looks down at the floor, then back at the cracked open door. "Can King stay with you tonight?"

His request rubs her the wrong way. "Your stupid imaginary dog?"

Why King? Why did David lose everything else that made him hers, but he still sees that stupid fake beagle?

She might as well have slapped him. He gives her the most awful, wounded look, then rushes out of the room. 

"David!" she calls after him, guilt-ridden. "David, wait, I'm sorry!"

His footsteps vanish before she even reaches the hall. She looks all through the house and he's gone. She's caught between horror and elation. 

She has to find him. She looks outside despite the steady drizzle: searches the yard, the edge of the woods. There's nothing, no sign of him, no footprints in the muddy ground. She checks the house again, triple checks every closet, every hiding place. He's just gone.

Their parents will be coming home soon and she doesn't know what to do. She's the big sister; David is her responsibility, especially when it's just the two of them. And what could she tell them? That David vanished into thin air? That's crazy. 

He must be somewhere. He has to be _somewhere_.

Where would he go? His friend Mark's house? The soccer field? Is there anywhere that might make him feel safe when he's upset?

There used to be. There's a hole in her heart where she used to keep him. She used to be his safe place, but she's let herself become one of the things that hurt him.

Despite how he changed, despite how she pulled away from him, she knows him better than anyone. She can find him. She has to.

 _David,_ she thinks, as hard as she can, trying to make her thoughts loud. Trying to make him hear her the way he used to, back when he would know what she was thinking almost before she did. It's absurd and insane but she has to try and she can't think of anything else.

_David, where are you? I'm sorry. Where are you? David!_

And then in a flash she knows. She throws on a coat and brings David's coat and shoes -- why doesn't he ever have any sense? -- and runs into the woods, through the fields, further. The rain worsens, then lightens again as she nears the ocean. 

There he is, sitting in the sand, curled around himself and soaking wet. As she draws near, she sees where his running footprints abruptly start, as if he'd stepped out of her room and landed in the middle of the beach.

Impossible. Insane. Maybe she's losing her mind, too; maybe his wild imagination is contagious.

"David," she calls, gentle as she kneels beside him. She drapes his coat around his shoulders, for what little good it will do to warm him now. She's struck by how much he's grown, from the baby in her arms to this; how he's still so small to her, and maybe he'll always be small to her.

"Tell me what's wrong," she says, as kindly as she can. She realizes now that he was already upset when he came to her; that he wouldn't have even dared approach the lion's den of her bedroom if he had any other choice. 

David glances at her, peeking over his arm, the curls of his hair flat and dripping from the rain. He looks away, closes his eyes. "Mark doesn't wanna be my friend anymore."

Oh. Oh, no.

"Did he say why?" she asks, but in her gut she already knows.

David shrugs. "He can't be friends with me because his other friends don't like me. That's why I can't play soccer anymore."

"Who said you can't?" she asks, already working up the courage to yell at the coach for letting David be bullied. She thought things were fine. She thought he was fitting in, that he was happy.

David doesn't answer, but tenses further. She's startled when he turns and looks her directly in the eyes. She can see so much in his eyes.

"Something's wrong with me," he says, and it's not a question. "Is that why you hate me?"

Amy can't quite breathe. "David, no, I don't-- I never--" She's sick with shame, realizing that she all but abandoned him; that at the first hint he didn't need her, she left him on his own. Of course he thinks she hates him. "What do you think is wrong with you?" 

He looks out at the water. "King!" he calls, and his eyes follow something she can't see. She can almost imagine a little beagle playing in the lapping waves. But she can't actually see it. She never could, no matter how much she pretended and played along.

"Why did you want King to stay with me?" she asks. "David?"

There's a long pause, so long she nearly asks him again, but at last he says: "Sometimes when I look at him, he isn't there."

"What does that mean?"

"He's there, I know he's-- he's always there," David says, struggling himself. "Of course he's there. But sometimes it's like, out of the corner of my eye, I don't--"

It takes her a moment to realize what he's saying. "You're upset because you think King... isn't real?"

"I know!" David opens up all at once, too bewildered to hide anymore. "Of course he's real, he's right there!" He points at nothing, nothing, and Amy's mind just--

She always thought--

The dog, the voices, all the things he imagined. She thought that he was pretending, that on some level he knew he was pretending. That one day he would grow out of it like their parents always said he would.

David was never pretending. It was all real to him and it still is. It's reality that he thinks isn't real.

She doesn't know what to do. David isn't just strange, he's broken. He's sick. Oh god, he's been sick this whole time and she did nothing to help him. Maybe she even made it worse by playing along.

She was so angry at their parents for only loving David when he was normal. But she's no better. She only loved David when he made her feel special. 

"He's always with me all the time," David continues, ignorant of her silent breakdown. "I wanted him to stay with you so I could be alone." He rubs his bare toes in the sand. "It's not just King. It's like, sometimes there's this whole other world... Everything is different. It's quiet."

"David," Amy says, her world still turning upside-down. "What do you hear? When it's not quiet, what do you hear?"

He gives her a confused look. "What do you mean?"

She grasps for the right words. "Like, right now, I hear the ocean. The wind. I hear our voices talking. Do you hear those?"

"Yeah," David says, but he's oddly unconvincing.

"But you hear other things, too, right? Things no one else does? Voices?"

This upsets him, but not in the way she expects. "You sound like Dad."

"You talked to Dad about the voices?"

"No, about the stars."

She feels suddenly cold. "What about the stars?"

"He said they talk to him, too. But he can't hear them. He's just pretending, like everyone is. He pretends that King isn't there, and Mom and Mark and you did, too!" He's angry about that. "It's mean and I hate it!"

"I'm sorry," Amy says, because she's so lost. She doesn't know what else to say. She doesn't even know where to begin.

All this time. All this time, he thought everyone else was pretending not to hear the voices, that they were pretending King wasn't real. He thought the whole world was playing a game and one day he did for the world what she's always done for him. He started playing along.

"You're right," she says, gathering herself. "It was mean of me. Can you ever forgive me?"

David shrugs, but she can already see him softening for her. 

"I'm sorry I ignored you," she continues, because she is, she's so sorry. "Sometimes I get upset, too, but I'm your big sister. I'm always here for you."

 _I always have to protect you_ , she thinks. _Even from yourself._

For the first time in so long, David smiles at her. It's shaky and uncertain and it breaks her heart and smashes it into tiny pieces. She smiles back and tries not to cry.

When he flings himself into her arms and hugs her, a few tears leak out anyway.

"King can stay with me tonight if you want," she says, trying so hard to pretend for him.

"Okay," David says. "Can I stay with you, too?"

She kisses the top of his head. "Always," she promises.

§

When they get home, Mom shakes her head at their wet, muddy condition and sends them off to get clean before dinner. They eat and everything is fine, but only because everyone is pretending so hard that things are fine.

David sleeps with her in her bed, King apparently curled up on the carpet. Amy is awake most of the night, thinking and worrying and hoping against hope.

The next day, she goes to the library and finds a book on mental disorders in children. It's not hard to find a diagnosis: auditory and visual hallucinations, abnormal behavior interfering with the ability to function and sustain normal interpersonal relationships, delusions and voices. 

Paranoid schizophrenia. Schizophrenic psychosis. A break with reality. The only problem with it is that David never saw the real world in the first place, so he could never break from it.

This isn't a secret she can keep for him.

She breaks down in the library bathroom, then pulls herself back together and checks the book out.

She doesn't tell her parents. She doesn't think they'd listen, doesn't trust them to help David after they failed so miserably with the seizures. She tells the school nurse and holds strong in the face of her skepticism, and then nurse talks to his teachers, and then they all talk to the principal, and then social services comes to the house and asks David a lot of questions. 

Amy holds David's hand through all of it. She tells him not to pretend for them, and he trusts her. He tells the social worker everything, and at the end of it, her parents are pale with horror.

That night, before bed, Mom takes her aside. 

"Amy," she says, barely restraining her anger. "You shouldn't have done that."

"I had to," Amy says, defiant. "He's been sick forever and you and Dad were never going to help him."

"This isn't what's best for him," Mom says, keeping her voice low but nearly spitting out every word. "David is special."

"He's sick," Amy spits back. "Everyone knows now so there's nothing you can do about it."

"No," Mom agrees, unhappily. "You made sure of that." 

"I'm going to make sure David gets better," Amy declares. "And when he does, I know he'll hate you and Dad as much as I do."

Amy turns from her mother's stricken face and walks away. She goes into the bathroom and shuts the door.

_Andromeda, Antlia, Apus, Aquarius, Aquila, Ara, Aries, Auriga, Bootes..._

She runs through the constellations, trying to calm herself. She has to be calm, has to be strong. For David, for herself, for whatever lies ahead.

She promised to protect David, and she will. She's going to do whatever it takes to help him see the real world, the world without imaginary dogs or hallucinations.

The library book she found mentioned how in olden times, the label of fairy child or changeling was used to make it acceptable for parents to kill their own children. They didn't want the burden of autism or schizophrenia or birth defects, so they called their babies monsters and left them somewhere to die.

David isn't a fairy child or a changeling. He's a real, normal boy with a disease. He has a mental illness that can be treated, managed, and maybe one day even cured. And she's going to be there with him every step of the way, making sure no one stops him from getting the treatment he needs. She's never going to abandon him again.


End file.
